Widescreen TV decapitating people.... (1 Viewer)

[BridgetJZ]

Hey all...we just invested in a new Phillips widescreen, 34" w/ HDTV....the problem is that the TV tends to cut of people's heads when we're watching TV and movies... is there anything that I can do about this?

 

[Lew Crippen]

First, make sure that you have your DVD player and receiver options set to 16:9.

Next make sure that you are not watching in some ‘zoom’ or ‘panaroma’ mode.

For 4:3 material, you should be watching in a ‘normal’ setting. You will get side bars (you may be able to set these to gray, if you prefer)

For DVD widescreen movies that are designated ‘enhanced’, you should put your TV in a setting probably called ‘full’. What happens is that the picture is stretched out to the sides of your screen and the height of the picture does not change, so you would not chop of anyone’s head. 2.35:1 movies (Cinemascope-style) movies will have top and bottom black bars. 1.85:1 movies probably won’t).

For widescreen movies that are not 16:9 enhanced, your TV setting should be ‘zoom’—this will expand the picture both ways in equal amounts.n Same for letterboxed TV shows.

Watching HD TV, your TV will probably lock into ‘full’, taking any choices away from you.

If you still have problems, you have a severe overscan problem and need to configure your set to correct that problem. Get a disk like AVIA or Video Essentials and configure yourself or (best choice) pay for an ISF calibration. (a few hundred dollars, depending).

 

[Jack Briggs]

Yes, check all the things Lew so thoroughly noted. But I bet the principle reason you're seeing this is because you don't have your DVD player adjusted to "16:9" in its setup menu.

 

[Lew Crippen]

And number one on my hit parade as well Jack

 

[BridgetJZ]

Thanks guys! I'm going to print this out and I'll let you know how it goes tommorow.